Comments on: Post request: The Amazon Kindle

By: Lance Sterling

Lance Sterling — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:38:07 +0000

I have been looking at the Kindle online for about six months. I would come very close to making the purchase, but I’d realize it didn’t make economic sense: I didn’t read enough books to justify the upfront investment; I couldn’t share books with friends; I would be giving up library borrowing; and I’m not even sure I own the books I purchase for the Kindle (much hoopla about this, I know). It didn’t make good economic sense to buy a Kindle. Now that I own one, I still agree with that conclusion – but I give the Kindle five stars. Why? Because the Kindle isn’t about saving money; it’s about enjoyable reading. And the Kindle is a glorious success at this. I can’t explain how nice it is to read without turning pages and fussing with bindings. If I want to hold a cup of coffee (or a glass of scotch) in one hand and the Kindle in the other, it’s no problem at all. I can access the relevant control (“Next Page”) without any fuss. If I want to lay the kindle flat on my desk and not touch it but to turn the pages, fine; no problem. For me, this is the main advantage of the Kindle. It sounds a bit ridiculous to complain of books being cumbersome, but you’ll understand after finishing your first Kindle edition book. That said, being able to wirelessly download books is a wonderful, if sometimes unwittingly expensive, feature. I love waking to the New York Times every morning and having various magazines delivered throughout the week for mere dollars a month. Granted, I expect to spend more on actual reading material, but I also expect to read more, which more than compensates for a slight fiscal uptick.

So, my recommendation is this; buy the Kindle, planning wholeheartedly to return it if you’re not completely taken by it. It doesn’t make a lot of economic sense, so you need to love it when it arrives. If you don’t, it’s not the device for you.

By: Thoughts on the Kindle - six months later « Thoughts On Stuff

Thoughts on the Kindle - six months later « Thoughts On Stuff — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:53:35 +0000

[...] made me so verbose, but the reply turned into something much more like a blog post, so here we are. My previous post about the Kindle, months before I got [...]

By: sunday

sunday — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:01:20 +0000

I also just had a conversation with a US ex-pat who lives in Spain and craves English lit. Her situation is perfect for the Kindle – it’s digital, and therefore doesn’t have to be shipped, and she has a wide variety of options, despite her lack of local options.

By: Kjerste

Kjerste — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:57:28 +0000

My main issue with the Kindle is that I tend to read books that are either (1) obscure, (2) art-related (so they really need high quality color printing), or (3) both. So Kindle isn’t going to work for the majority of what I read any time soon. But I think it’s an interesting direction in which to take things, and I’m curious to see if it catches on, generally.

By: sunday

sunday — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:20:48 +0000

Thank you for responding so thoughtfully!

I see the same thing – much like access to journals in academic libraries, public libraries will have access to books through vendors (the hated and perfectly-evilly named Elsevier, I’m sure) and patrons will have access for so long, then fined for each day past due. That will do nicely. You won’t lose the book after the due date, but you’ll have to ‘return’ access for someone else, which will control access.

By: Charles Wilkes

Charles Wilkes — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:14:02 +0000

A very insightful reply. I took my Kindle to my local library, and showed it to all the professional librarians. They loved it. But difficult to see how it could enhance their lending policy. While it will surely be reduced in price in the future, even then it would be expensive to buy enough of them to allow them to lend them like a book, and even more so seeing the cost of books per Kindle needed to go with it.

Personally, I hate DRM — if I buy something (I know — license!!! — but that’s a sham) I want to truly own it, and be able to loan it or sell it (but not copy it so someone else doesn’t have to buy it).

I think the library future is to allow you to bring you Kindle to the library, and fill it using a USB cable with books they offer for free — and there are many free ebooks available to meet that need. Or offer them online to library card holders to be sent to their Kindle via wireless at a cost to the borrower of ten cents each. They might even levy a charge per ebook as a change from free lending — it would be worth a dollar or less to most people. There’s no returns required to be processed like there is for books loaned, so it’s cheaper for the library. Maybe the charge could look like an overdue charge, which libraries are already used to charging.

Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.